EricFate wrote on Feb 24, 2013, 20:02:"Nobody can work from home right now, come into the office" means one thing, and one thing only in corporate speak. "We need to lay a bunch of you off, and we don't think you respect us enough to actually come and voluntarily turn in all the stuff of ours that you currently have in your home office."

More like... we need to lay a bunch of you off... so we're taking away a privilege (and in some cases an agreement to being employed) in hopes that it will piss enough of you off to quit. It's a win-win for us... since we won't have to pay for your unemployment, and we don't look bad in the public's eyes for laying more people off.

I do realize working at home can be abused... but that's why you make things task based instead of hourly. X tasks have to be done daily. Y tasks... we estimate it will take 2 weeks to complete... you have 2 weeks. Multiple deadlines missed... you're fired. If you are consistently ahead of schedule with quality work... you get a bonus. It's a business model adjustment.... and I agree there needs to be some days that people need to come in for live exchanges with thei co-workers and meetings and such.